In the next two months, 14-year-old students all over India would begin one of the most academically important years of their lifetime. The SSC Board Exam or Secondary School Certificate Examination is conducted by numerous education boards across India. This exam is better known as Std. 10th Boards and stands as a determiner of a student’s next step towards their career goal. This year stands for a lot of things and feelings. For some Standard 10 students, it is the end of their school life, for some, it’s a new opportunity to identify their skills, but for all of them, the SSC year is a year of the war for excellent marks.

The curriculum of Std. 10th students will comprise of a number of subjects viz., English, Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, Mathematics, Science, Geography, History, Political Science, Economics and so on. As a rule, most of the students would prefer to keep the SSC English textbook as the last item on their study timetable. Some students and teachers alike would consider the English language as quite an easy subject, where all students will have to do is learn certain words, synonyms and then just answer comprehension questions. This is exactly where most of us go wrong. Many times students tend to confuse English grammar concepts with vocabulary concepts when it comes to their English board exam preparation.

Why not treat the English language at par with other subjects and give it some equal importance in the planning process for your SSC Board examination? While it is true that you may not be able to score full marks as the SSC exam would test you upon your reading, writing, comprehension and analytical skills. This would be in addition to the subjectivity that would be included at the end of your paper checker. These are a few reasons why many students shy away from giving English the importance it very much deserves in the SSC board exam preparation. To ensure you get exceptional marks as an Std. 10th student, you will have to give equal importance to all subjects. In this blog, we shall discuss the tips that would help you plan and prepare better to crack the SSC examination.

How should you plan your SSC Board examination preparation for the English Language?

Your Std. 10 English textbook will help you understand the entire syllabus, language study as well as the writing skills that will be asked in the examination. Start off your exam preparation from the very first month of your academic year. It will be quite easy to assume that all you have to do when it comes to English is to read. This quite sadly is not the case. If you look at the latest paper pattern, you will realize that this year, there will be no internal marks for students to score. The paper will account for 100 marks and will be divided into the following six sections:

The syllabus comprises of four units that are divided into six chapters respectively. This means that you will have to study 24 lessons in total, of these some will be poems and some will be chapters in the form of prose. Out of the entire year, divide the first 7 months in accordance with these chapters. Once you have divided the chapters, start reading them from cover to cover. You can always add on to your board exam preparation by opting for more than one method of study. While studying with a pencil and a book totally work, you can also begin your exam preparation with the help of audio-visual methods. For instance, you can view a number of videos, which will help you prepare in a better manner to tackle English as well as to help you understand poems so as to score more in the Poem Appreciation question.

Here are a few more tips to help you along with your English board exam preparation:

It always helps to read the Warming Up section at the beginning of every chapter. This will allow you to score well in the Writing Skills section

Properly follow the format of every Writing Skills question that is going to be asked

Try and summarise every single chapter throughout the textbook on your own.

When it comes to practising grammar, find out all the exercises throughout the chapters as well as from any other reference book

To develop your vocabulary, start to make a Glossary of your own which will help you understand and learn the words in a proper manner.

Target Publications is an educational publishing house which has meticulously created educational reference material to aid students in their SSC board exam preparation. When it comes to the English language, in particular, this publication offers three different types of SSC books to help students. These are: